Tacoma Rainiers

The wordmark "Rainiers" in Northwest green outlined with red drop shadow. Centered below the wordmark are the words "Professional Baseball" in Northwest green. Centered above the wordmark is Mount Rainier in silver with navy blue and Northwest green shadowing. Centered above Mount Rainier is the "Tacoma" wordmark arched in navy blue with a baseball as the "o."

Division titles

League titles

Manager

Daren Brown

Owner

The Tacoma Rainiers are a minor league baseball team that play in the Pacific Coast League, and are the AAA affiliate of the Seattle Mariners. Since 1960, a team in Tacoma, Washington has been in the PCL, the longest current active streak of membership in the league.

Tacoma's first entry in the PCL was the Tacoma Tigers, who joined the league in 1904, having moved from Sacramento after the 1903 season. The 1904 Tigers won Tacoma's first PCL pennant, finishing first in both halves of the split season schedule, 7 games (annualized) over the runner-up Los Angeles Angels. The 1905 Tigers won the first-half championship, then played so poorly in the second half they moved back to Sacramento, finishing out the season as the Sacramento Solons, and losing the postseason series to the Angels. The PCL would not return to Tacoma for another 55 years; however, another Tacoma Tigers franchise operated in the Western International League from the 1930s until 1951.

The current franchise was founded in 1960 when the Phoenix Giants, an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, moved to Tacoma and became the Tacoma Giants. For the next 19 years, the team mirrored the name of its parent major league club, being known through the years as the Tacoma Giants (1960-1965), Tacoma Cubs (1966-1971), Tacoma Twins (1972-1977), and Tacoma Yankees (1978). Subsequently, the team was known as the Tacoma Tugs (1979-1980) and, once more, the Tacoma Tigers (1981-1994).

The team became associated with the nearby Seattle Mariners in 1995, whose AAA team for the previous ten seasons had been the Calgary Cannons. Tacoma adopted the Rainiers name in part as a tribute to the Seattle Rainiers minor league teams that played in Seattle from 1938-1964 in the PCL, and again from 1972-1976. The Tacoma Rainiers play their home games at Cheney Stadium, which hosted the baseball portion of the 1990 Goodwill Games. The Mariners' Safeco Field is about 30 miles to the north.

Oakland Athletics power hitters José Canseco and Mark McGwire both played for the Tacoma Tigers on their way to baseball stardom. Alex Rodriguez also played for the team in their first year as the Rainiers in 1995, before becoming a superstar.

[edit] Current roster

Pitchers

14 Bobby Livingston
17 Everett Collis
19 Travis Blackley
22 Scott Atchison
25 Justin Huisman
34 Jesse Foppert
34 Mike Flannery
36 Rich Dorman
38 Aaron Looper
39 Jason Snyder
41 Kyle Parker
44 Jeff Harris
54 Renee Cortez
55 Clint Nageotte

Catchers

8 Rob Johnson
9 Juan Beltran
20 Jeff Clement

Infielders

15 Ismael Castro
18 Michael Garciaparra
23 Dean Zorn
26 Hunter Brown
47 Bryan La Hair

Outfielders

24 Alex Gary
46 Jon Nelson

Manager

Daren Brown

Coaches

Terry Pollreisz
Dwight Bernard

[edit] References

O'Neal, Bill. The Pacific Coast League 1903-1988. Eakin Press, Austin TX, 1990. ISBN 0-89015-776-6.
Snelling, Dennis. The Pacific Coast League: A Statistical History, 1903-1957 McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, NC, 1995. ISBN 0-7864-0045-5.

[edit] External links

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